What is the root of this? Is it because we're comparing ourselves against performative artifice? We expect ourselves to be as smart as the tenured professor tha

What is the root of this? Is it because we're comparing ourselves against performative artifice? We expect ourselves to be as smart as the tenured professor that has performed some sequence lectures, relaying all the information for a couple dozen years and prior to every lecture also brushes up on all of it? Or some speaker who does much the same. Or some online personality. And the media at large has such compelling emotional content, it's so beautiful and gripping, almost as if it's scripted, but we suspend our disbelief... We never see ourselves naked. It's always a presentation of the best. I think we should definitely extrapolate the expectation of every banal and questionable aspects of ourselves on to others, even if it's translated into some other area - and no, it's only more admirable because the grass looks greener on the other side.